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By Meghan Peterson
Tall Tale – “a story that is very difficult to believe: a greatly exaggerated story.”
Recently, my sons and I have taken to reading a collection of American “tall tales” – classic larger-than-life narratives about Davy Crockett, Johnny Appleseed, among others. As expected, my oldest asked me “Mommy, what does ‘tall tale’ mean?” As per usual, one of my two favorite Inquisitors (the other being my younger rascal, of course) had issued an excellent query. “Well, it is a story about real people and real events, but with a heavy dose of drama and not-so-real details for fun and entertainment.”
I wonder what kinds of tall tales future generations will tell. Will they tell tales about the time when men could become women and women become men? How about the time when it was considered compassionate healthcare for young boys and girls to remove (or add) body parts via surgery or hormone blocker regimens? What about that moment when a law to resuscitate and save a human baby after a botched abortion procedure failed to pass because lawmakers worried the bill would harm women’s (or should we say men’s healthcare? After all, according to an earlier tall tale, a now-woman could have been a then-man).
Or what about the time when a human born as a man decided he was a she and beat humans born as women (who stayed as women) in elite swim competitions? Or about the time a he-she won a women’s beauty pageant?
How about the time in which American schools were teaching reading, writing, arithmetic, and how to copulate and with whom or what (depending on how the student identified that day – you can be a unicorn, hedgehog, or rabbit…)?
Or when Americans who are concerned about men pretending to be women and women pretending to be men? Or about the time when it no longer is adequate to tolerate evil. Total, absolute acceptance – an open arm embrace of the new math equation: bad = good is the edict du jour.
Wait, none of the above are tall tales.
If we keep our hearts and minds intact, what will not be a tall tale is that goodness and liberty vanquished oppression and abuse – for the sake of ourselves and our posterity – so that they can continue to live, read, speak, think in and with truth.
